April 2013 Bloggers’s Recommendations: Wedding Nights, Family Reunions, and Hot British Vamps

Each month, we ask our bloggers to share the best thing they’ve read (or things, plural, if our bloggers declare a tie ’cause they just can’t choose). It doesn’t have to be a new book, as evidenced below; just something that made the month sparkle a bit more.

Without further ado, here’s the installment for April 2013 (and if you’ve missed any, be sure to check out past recs via the related posts section at the bottom of the post):

I have a ying and yang approach to reading. While sometimes I do find books that make me laugh, and tug on my heartstrings, it can be rare. So I alternate between the two. Reminiscent of an I Love Lucy episode, with it hilarious farcical comedy, Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella, is full of merriment and amusement. Of course there are true gems of living interspersed too, like believing in yourself, and the truism that one person can make a difference. Still when I think back over my reading for April, I remember my delight in reading a truly funny book. (Read Leigh's First Look post on Wedding Night.)

Emily Giffin succeeded in writing the perfect blend of bittersweet, mixed with hope and renewal in her paperback release of Where We Belong. She doesn’t sugarcoat the awkwardness, and discomfort after the heroine, Marian Caldwell opens the door one night to find the eighteen-year-old daughter she gave up for adoption waiting there. Deep in uncharted waters both Marian and her daughter attempt to forge new relationships and define old ones. The characters and the scenarios stayed with me long after I closed the book.

First there's Cecilia Grant's A Woman Entangled, but you'll have to wait to read about why I loved that one in my First Look...

I'm currently re-reading Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy for a panel discussion, and recently finished Dawn. It reminded me all over again what a superb science fiction writer Butler was. The story takes place after a human-made apocalypse. Aliens arrive and offer us a second chance, but at a price. Butler relentlessly fans out numerous ethical issues while exploring one woman's reaction to being placed in a position of both subservience to and power over the aliens as well as unwanted power over other humans, who are of course fractiously divided.

OK. OK. I am a little late to discover Molly Harper. Now that I have, I am huge fan. I almost bounced my husband off the bed I was laughing so hard. Miranda Puckett is such a breath of fresh air. She is a walking cyclone of mayhem and missteps. I absolutely relate to her. To top it off, she is stuck driving a tight-ass colonial-era British vamp cross country. Collin Sutherland has a serious case of control freak. Miranda doesn't let that stand in her way and their trip is a non-stop laugh. I think the best laugh for me was the neon pink breasts that were spray painted on the hood of her car by “mammary-minded juvenile delinquents.” Miranda's reaction? “Fuck a duck!” I am now working my way through all of Harper's books. They are that much fun.

Victoria, I too loved A Woman Entangled. No surprise there. I added Cecilia Grant to my autobuy list on the strength of her first book. She is an amazing writer. I read A Woman Entangled and Tessa Dare's Any Duchess Will Do (which I also loved) within days of one another. Together they provide interesting examples of why sometimes I'm happy to suspend disbelief concerning cross-class matches and why I'm delighted to see a novel that answers the questions raised but left unanswered by the cross-class matches that don't charm me into suspending disbelief.

Could not agree more with Leigh's comments on Emily Giffin's Where We Belong. I loved it from the first page right through to the last. She made this story believable and it, too, stayed with me long after I closed the book.